It was great to be invited to attend the annual Turing lecture and to be able to present the work of the Turing Trust. But it was even better to have the privilege of hearing such a thought provoking lecture from Dr Guruduth Banavar, IBM Vice-President of Cognitive Computing and leader of the worldwide team creating Watson. The breadth of vision about how the technology could be used to benefit society, but also the deep understanding of the need to address the ethical issues that arise was inspirational. The lecture was recorded and so if you weren’t able to attend, you can catch up here.

The questions following the lecture were also stimulating. For example, and perhaps of particular relevance to those interested in computing in environments without easy access to electricity, there was a question comparing the energy consumption of the human brain with that of a supercomputer!